Everyone who starts a war has a goal involving the shape of the world after the war (assuming victory). That goal has been remarkably consistent down through the years: peace. The peace might be the pax Roma or a Thousand Year Reich or a democratic Southeast Asia or Middle East or an independent United States of America, but the postwar condition is always assumed to be one of peace.

The Founders had peace in mind as their goal. "Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" and "the blessings of liberty" are not generally understood by sane people to mean a state of perpetual war.

The Founders deserve great credit for their understanding of human nature, and they knew full well that times of war provide excuses for the expansion of power by authoritarian despots. They could not have considered war to be a desirable condition for a nation that intended to maintain liberty, and would have been inclined to minimize its use as only a last resort.

My, how times have changed.